


Hover

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Christmas Presents, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Open Relationships, Sassy, Tony Being Tony, hover boards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 00:36:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5949427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He promised Rhodey, when they were like ten, that he would make him a hover board for Christmas. Of course ten year old him was a stupid fucking prick and he hadn’t been able to figure it out but forty two year old him was way god damn smarter than ten year old him. </p>
<p>Also he wanted a hover board, fuck his promise to Rhodey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoodSourceofFiber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodSourceofFiber/gifts).



> Recently I got into Tony/ Rhodey and I was like yes, this fluffy ficlet needs to be written immediately.

He promised Rhodey, when they were like ten, that he would make him a hover board for Christmas. Of course ten year old him was a stupid fucking prick and he hadn’t been able to figure it out but forty two year old him was way god damn smarter than ten year old him. Also _he_ wanted a hover board, fuck his promise to Rhodey. It had become a running joke, every year, that Rhodey never got his hover board. Well this year Tony figured it out and he had even worked out the bugs but no, Rhodey had to be off doing some other thing this year and he had abandoned Tony with everyone else for Christmas. Pepper had only just stopped him from boarding a plane and going to hunt Rhodey’s ass down so he could give the man his hover board. He only resisted because of that one time he got shot with one of his own weapons and he’d rather not have that happen again, but he had been some tempted.

Rhodey, the asshole, takes like eighty years to clear up whatever mess he was dealing with overseas and by then Tony had come up with a totally new and improved hover board that the SI staff thought was great. They all totally wanted one and everyone was telling him to put it on the market but he told them, and had them sign contracts, that the hover board remained silent until Rhodey got his ass back to America to get his fucking twenty-some years too late Christmas gift. He even customized it to look sort of like an American flag because Rhodey was a patriot. Well, not really, but he did hold an attachment to his country even if he did hold a healthy amount of skepticism towards it so it fit just fine. Plus it looked cool at hell.

Pepper had decided she wanted one too so for funsies he made her a bright pink one because she hated the color and the look on her face had been worth it too. It was even better to see her glare at everyone as she expertly maneuvered through the office on her candy pink hover board in heels, still looking like very much like a grown woman despite the board. Tony’s own was hot rod red and gold because he was a subtle guy, he wanted it to be lowkey and also cool.

Who the hell was he kidding, he just wanted to look cooler than Pepper but he couldn’t even stand in heels let alone ride a damn hover board in them. He still looked pretty sweet though, JARVIS said so.

When Rhodey _finally_ gets back everyone around him knew about his present but him and they had pestered him so much about it that he half hadn’t wanted it, Tony could tell. Hazards of dating the guy for most of his life even if it took them forever to figure out that yeah, they were actually dating, though it was mostly an open relationship arrangement. It worked for them. He had shown up at SI and Tony swore he heard the whole company go collectively silent and on the one security feed he had eyes on everyone had collectively leaned forward too. He could almost feel Rhodey rolling his eyes as he walked through the building, all eyes on him in a very literal sense, to go find Tony.

Tony wasn’t one for patience on the best of days but after almost twenty three years of jokes and having _finally_ figured out the hover board thing Rhodey just _had_ to have prior arrangements with the government. Tony had been so _so_ tempted to just shut down the military, he made everything for it so it wasn’t as if it was impossible, just to get Rhodey home but Pepper reminded him of the last time he became a national security risk. He had not appreciated the house arrest and he had ended up making a new element from some old designs his father had around. He won a Nobel Prize though, well, another Nobel Prize.

Finally Rhodey comes through the door and Tony knows that all eyes have shifted to him and Rhodey now, JARVIS having no doubt given everyone access to the security feed to his lab given how much everyone was anticipating this. They even shot some pretty sweet promos of the boards to leak after Rhodey got his, basically everyone who worked in the New York headquarters had pre-ordered one, all they were waiting for was Rhodey. “What the hell did you get me? The way people have been acting you’d think you finally figured out that hover board,” he says and Tony grins.

“Well actually…” he says and Rhodey goes from looking irritated to excited to skeptical so fast Tony almost got whiplash.

“You better not be fucking with me, Stark, if it has wheels I will straight up reject it, that is not a hover board that is a lie,” he says and Tony laughs. Oh yeah, when the ‘hover boards’ had come out Rhodey was pissed off that someone else had beat Tony to it for like five seconds before he realized it wasn’t actually a hover board.

“Please, when have I ever needed training wheels for my tech?” he says, getting up and walking into the adjacent room to retrieve his own board. Rhodey’s face when he rode out on it was glorious and totally worth all the fuss that had happened up until now. It’s been a long time since Tony has seen Rhodey that genuinely excited, with work, dealing with Tony’s mid-life crisis last year, Tony’s career change, and basically just dealing with Tony he knew Rhodey was a bit exhausted. He didn’t blame the guy, he wasn’t an easy person to deal with but damn did Rhodey always do so well, and now he had a hover board for his efforts.

“Dude that is the greatest thing I have ever seen! It doesn’t have wheels, it’s not a lie!” he says, dancing around excitedly, “okay great, get the hell off that thing so I can test it out!” he says, clapping his hands together enthusiastically.

Tony snorts and hovers back to the side room, retrieving Rhodey’s custom board with a cool bow on it and everything and glides back over to Rhodey. The last time he heard Rhodey squeal they were in college still and that was when he found out Rhodey was terrified of mice, which his apartment had been invested with, but he gets the pleasure of hearing the sound again. Tony casually glides around and gives Rhodey instructions on how to ride in excruciating detail, safety first, while he watches Rhodey ignore everything he was saying. That was fine because this was the part he was most looking forward to.

He finishes the spiel and Rhodey excitedly tries, and very quickly fails, at using the board. Tony laughs at him as he repeatedly falls off but within a half an hour he sort of gets the hang of it. “Damn, you make it look so easy,” he says, clinging to Tony as he hovers them around the hallways on their respective boards while people snicker at the look on Rhodey’s face every time he wobbles. Tony catches him when he almost falls though, every time, because it was only fair to catch him when Rhodey’s done it for him so many times.

“Well I am the tech expert,” he says, grinning and catching Rhodey when he almost takes another trip over board again. “Wanna see something cool?” he says and Rhodey gives him a look because duh, obviously he wanted to see something cool. “If you could remain upright for like five minutes I’ll be back,” he says and hovers towards the stairs.

Rhodey realizes what he’s about to do and he hears Rhodey abandon the board to go save Tony’s dumb ass, arriving just in time to miss Tony by millimeters as he goes down the stairs, having learned how to balance on them long ago, also the board was attached to his feet so. “What the fuck, Tony, you cannot just go down stairs on a hover board you will get yourself killed!” Rhodey yells at him as he laughs his way down. It helped that the board naturally leveled itself out so that the user wasn’t tipped too far forward or back, he still couldn’t figure out how to go _up_ the stairs without falling off though. He’d get it eventually, he always did.

“Relax, Rhodes, I’m an expert,” he says, grinning up at Rhodey and gliding around. Rhodey looked so pissed it was hilarious but it was totally worth it.

“Well get your expert ass back up here so I can kick it,” he says, crossing his arms and giving Tony his best Disappointed Mom face.

“Uh huh, that’s what you’re going to do, hmm?” he asks, detaching himself from the board and climbing the stairs.

Rhodey, true to his word, kicks him in the ass, “now teach me how to do that without having a heart attack,” he says, grinning.

“Sure thing, sweet cakes, and just so you know everyone has been waiting for you to get this damn board so they can have one too. I have held up what will almost certainly be a multi-million dollar investment for you, I fell as if I should get some love,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows at Rhodey.

He rolls his eyes but pulls Tony in for a kiss that was tender though far too short for Tony’s liking, “now teach me how to ride the hover board, I’ve been waiting since I was ten,” he says. Tony rolls his eyes fondly but does agree to teach Rhodey how to ride the board.

When Pepper glides over to his office on hers sometime later to tell him that yeah, hover boards were a great investment, pre-orders have skyrocketed far above the numbers Tony predicted, Rhodey comments on the hideous pink her board was. “Tell your boyfriend to fix it,” she says and hovers away with a flourish that not even Tony could manage.

“Two things, one, Pep’s done a lot of good things for you, like dealing with your mid-life crisis; you should be nice and at least give her a shade of pink that doesn’t resemble Pepto-Bismol. Two, how the hell does she manage to ride this thing in heels? I feel inadequate,” he says.

“Okay one, my mid-life crisis happened _one_ time, and the pink isn’t _that_ bad. And two, Pepper has obviously transcended humanity; we all know she is at a level that is far beyond human we just need to accept that we are not worthy. I also customized her board to work with heels so there’s also that,” he says. Initially they had been designed for flat feet only but Pepper told him she was not sacrificing style for hover and he had always enjoyed a challenge.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, giving him the Disappointed Mom Look again.

He sighs, “fine. I’ll make it blue, she likes blue.”                         


End file.
